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Mercedes boss Toto Wolff admits that it was a very difficult call to apply team orders mid-race, as Valtteri Bottas was instructed to let teammate Lewis Hamilton through so the Brit could chase eventual race winner Sebastian Vettel.
Bottas struggled throughout yesterday's Grand Prix due to an issue with tyre pressures and was unable to match the pace of his rivals around him.
"We don’t like it at all,” Wolff said when questioned. "We haven’t done it in the last years or have tried to avoid it as good as we can. Until today, we have tried to avoid it as good as we can. It’s a moment of realization that if you don’t react, you’re going to lose the race. Then you have to make an unpopular call.
"It was our mindset and racing philosophy until now that we have given them both equal opportunity. Like today, you have two cars starting on the front row. If they run second and first, you just have to let them race. When you have a problem on the car like we had in the afternoon, that would have been a situation we would have considered – to swap them – but with a Ferrari in between, we couldn’t. Three races into the season, you don’t want to go there yet."
The first time orders were applied, Wolff admitted that they held off the call for too long which cost Hamilton some momentum.
"You’re always more intelligent afterward, what could have been. It’s a call you don’t like to make. I think both have to have a chance of winning the race and having the best possible result. And it’s only when the moment comes, you realize if you’re not changing anything, you’re going to lose the race, that is the moment when you have to make that unpopular call."
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